Winter: After the Fall
by romxjul
Summary: "It's sure been a cold, cold winter / And a lot of love is all burned out" Five songs, five drabbles about Sherlock and John after the fall.


Winter: After the Fall

_It's sure been a cold, cold winter_

_And a lot of love is all burned out_

Five songs, five drabbles

_Take my hand and take my whole life, too. 'Cause I can't help falling in love with you._

John really didn't want to think about it anymore. None of it, not that day, not that week, but especially not that moment.

He relived that moment more than any other in his nightmares, which made him cry out with the voice he couldn't find when it happened. Oh, in the nightmares he could scream Sherlock's name so loudly that the crowd between them was blown away, and so fiercely that no one dared to rip Sherlock's hand from his. But what good was that, when Sherlock was already –

When it had happened, all he could do was choke out "he's my friend, he's my friend, please" with what little breath he had. All he had wanted was to hold Sherlock's hand. Not for one last time, but forever. Because the thoughts he had been too panicked to articulate or even think about with the wind knocked out of him were branded in his mind every night when he revisited the horrific scene.

The thoughts were there in that moment, of course, but in the form of instinct, of the sharply hollow pain in his chest. He had needed to hold Sherlock's hand. If he could only give Sherlock his hand, he could give Sherlock his life, too. John could take his place.

If the moment had been longer, he would have prayed. No use in praying now, but in that moment, God would have had to listen. In the nightmares, he always prayed.

_Take me instead. Take my life, take my soul, take my everything. Anything you want, just not – not Sherlock. Anything but him. Let me die instead._

But there was no God in John's nightmares. The deed was done.

What John regretted most about that moment, when Sherlock's body lay dying, when he needed John more than ever, was letting Sherlock's hand slip out of his… and letting Sherlock's life slip away before John could offer his own.

_I'm still in love but all I heard was nothing_

_I wanted words but all I heard was nothing_

These days, when John gets drunk, he forgets. Or rather, he forgets not to remember. At first, it's beautiful, it's amazing, so perfect that the memory of it makes him cry through his pounding hangover the next morning. The weight is lifted, he's free of the heavy blackness that follows him from waking life into his dreams, where Sherlock's hand reaches toward him but he can't take it, where no one believes in Sherlock Holmes but John, and it's suffocating. When he jerks violently, frantically awake, not much is different.

But when he drinks, oh, it's as if he's floating, he's so weightless. When he wonders where Sherlock is, his brain answers "at home." But even blissfully inebriated, John misses him.

So he catches a cab. Shouts out, "221B Baker Street!" Sometimes he's laughing. Sherlock's a cab ride away.

When he gets to the door, he can't open it. Where's his key? He must have forgotten it. No matter. John knocks on the door.

"Sherlock? Sherlock!"

The door doesn't respond.

"Sherlock, let me in, it's freezing out here."

Knocking turns to pounding, with no regard to his bruising fist.

"Sherlock, I don't care if you're busy! Let me in!"

After fifteen minutes, John's sitting on the stoop, his face against the door, his slurred voice getting rawer with every word.

"Sherlock, I need you. Please, Sherlock, answer me. Where are you? Why aren't you with me? I don't understand, Sherlock, explain it to me. _Please_."

A pause. His eyes sting with desperation.

"Did I do something wrong? Is that why you're not here?"

When his voice quiets, he hears a sound. It's faint. He holds his breath, listening.

The sound grows louder. It seeps through the door and wraps around him like a blanket, smothering him in its echo.

Sitting on the stoop of 221B in the middle of the night, all alone, it's all John can hear.

The deafening, haunting sound of nothing at all.

_It was not your fault but mine, and it was your heart on the line. I really fucked it up this time, didn't I, my dear?_

If it had been any other circumstance, if it had been anyone, anybody else, Sherlock would have felt pleased with himself. His ruse was perfectly executed, Moriarty was dead, and his friends were all alive.

But one seemed a different person entirely. And what kept Sherlock from feeling at all proud of his cleverness was the look on John Watson's face as he spoke quietly, intently, to what he thought was Sherlock's grave.

The man who he had always looked at him hopefully, waiting trustingly for Sherlock's latest grand deduction, was looking at the polished black headstone with a desperate, quiet sort of hopeless hopefulness. John looked positively destroyed by his best friend's death, and though Sherlock, of course, knew that he was alive, the fact that John didn't, and that the illusion had done _this_ to him, well.

It made Sherlock feel the least clever and least pleased he had ever felt.

He had made an absolute, complete mess of things, and what was most appallingly unforgivable was that John had _warned_ him of this. John had warned him, he had ignored the warning, and now who was paying the price?

Sherlock almost wished he had died. Then he wouldn't have to see John so broken because of him, because of his stupidity, his wooden-headedness. That such a strong, loyal, kind man, a man that he cared about, who he would always think of as more than a best friend, a flatmate, or a blogging assistant, was shattered by Sherlock's actions...

Sherlock closed his eyes. He couldn't bear to watch John say goodbye to his placebo tombstone. When he looked back up again, John was walking away, a slight limp in his step.

Sherlock sighed. For the first time in his life, he realized he had fucked everything up.

And John was paying the price.

_I have died every day waiting for you. Darling don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years._

_I'll love you for a thousand more._

It was just _too _ironic.

The whole situation was beyond reason. John would be laughing if it didn't make him want to lie down on the sofa – Sherlock's sofa – and never get up again.

Everyone had been so sure. Not one person had ever even questioned the assumption.

_If you'll be needing two rooms. I'll bring a candle, it's more romantic. Someone loves you. Is yours a snorer?_

It was just assumed. Of course they were more than flatmates, best friends. Obviously John was in love with Sherlock. Oh, no one bothered to ask him, the ever-transparent John Watson. If they had, he would have insisted that no, no, it wasn't like that at all.

_Sherlock_ wasn't like that. That he had known for sure. So, really, what John felt was irrelevant. Irrelevant enough that he never thought of it. Irrelevant enough that if he _was_ asked, the only answer he would ever give was no, no, it wasn't like that at all.

Herein lay the thick, clotted, hideous irony. For all the time he had known Sherlock Holmes, he had refused to think of his feelings, whatever they were, and kept them hidden from even himself. Or, rather, he had tried to.

But now. Now, Sherlock Holmes was no more. And it was as if the moment Sherlock had hit the ground, John had been flipped – no, ripped – open like a book and now he was just… open. Empty, but open.

There would be no more denials from him. When people assumed, he let them. He felt flattered. He pretended they were right. But it was painful.

And it was… stupid. Idiotic, in fact. That now he was finally admitting it, embracing it, but it was like opening a door that went nowhere. Sherlock was gone. Gone before John could ever tell him.

How would Sherlock have reacted? Perhaps he already guessed it. No doubt he wouldn't have reciprocated, but John… John would have wanted Sherlock to die with not a deduction but actual, concrete knowledge that someone really, truly, desperately loved him.

All John could do now was continue to love him. Not out of a sense of duty, but because he'd forgotten how to live without loving Sherlock. He knew he'd never remember, and he never wanted to.

He was John Watson, and the one thing that everybody would always know about him was that he was in love with Sherlock Holmes.

_And miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground and I, I pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm arms._

The distance from where John sits to where Sherlock would be is maybe one or two meters. He tries not to stare at the empty chair. He tries to stop his eyes from tracing the steps that it would take to get from here to there, to get to Sherlock's side, to the point where he could touch him. If Sherlock were here.

John's feet are bare. He almost put on his shoes and socks this morning when he got dressed, but then he remembered. There would be no cases today, no sudden texts followed by a race to the crime scene that didn't leave time for putting on shoes. Sherlock wouldn't be leading a charge toward excitement anymore. John wasn't going anywhere anymore. So, his feet are bare.

Sometimes he talks to Lestrade. Sometimes Mycroft sends him a text that he doesn't read. No shiny black car comes for him. Sometimes Mrs. Hudson pays a visit to his new flat.

When they talk, John can't focus. He wants to, he does, but the words just sound like… noise.

And when Mrs. Hudson tells him, "I'm worried that you're, well, spending too much time alone, dear," and asks delicately, "Do you leave the flat much?" all he can hear is Sherlock's voice, crystal-clear in his mind. _Alone protects me_.

_Friends protect people_, he had said.

Well, a great job John had done.

He didn't go to the cemetery often. Just when he felt truly lost. When there was nowhere else he could go.

It was evening when he found himself in front of the glossy, dark stone. It looked like Sherlock. He sat on the ground, not facing the headstone, not with his back to it, either, but sideways.

He looked at the grass. Maybe it was creepy, sitting just a few meters above… it, but. It was as close as he could get.

By the time the stars had begun to prick through the dark velvet of the night sky, John was lying down. Curled on his side on the cold, hard ground, facing the stone now.

John had never felt farther from Sherlock.

He was too tired to stop the thoughts now. He imagined Sherlock's arms around him, gripping him, looking earnestly into his face and asking "are you alright?" Because for once, he wasn't.

There were no tears, but his body wracked with sobs until he was exhausted into sleep.

When he woke up to the frantic chirping of some ghost of a bird, John found himself under a blanket. He reflected hollowly that the cemetery groundskeepers were quite dedicated to their jobs. Folding the blanket in his new, tired way, he set it next to the headstone.

Feeling more alone than ever, John walked home.

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading! Nothing is better than getting feedback on a story, so reviews would be lovely :)


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